all hail greg mattison

I listened to Mattison's interview on BIG network last night. When he was asked what are the weaknesses of the defense, Mattison paused for a moment and then basically said none. Then he went to praise every unit and say that we are going to be very aggressive because the DL will put pressure of QBs. This morning, there is additional information on MLive with Mattison defending Hoke, but also sounding really high on the defense. I think we are going to have a really good defense this year -- May be the best in BIG. http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2014/08/greg_mattison_defends_...

I still remember the first time someone asked to see my ID. I was a junior in college, and walking into a casino. I proudly withdrew my Michigan driver's license and handed it to the bouncer. He looked at me, saw my beaming face, and chuckled. He knew what I didn't: that I would start to hate being asked for ID after it happened approximately twice more; by then I just wanted to get where I was going or buy what I was buying without having to reach into my pocket and pull my ID out of my wallet. Leave me alone, man. I'm old enough.

Of course, these days, I take more pleasure in being carded. It rarely happends, but when it does, I'm pleased to reveal that I have been older than 21 for...a long time.

This diary will examine the experience of our overall roster. I decided I wanted to go beyond the O-Line and look at the whole picture. This concept basically occurred to me when I realized I was no longer completely committed to BRADYHOKE4EVER. I love the guy, and think he can be successful, but our offense is approaching the ineptitude that our defense achieved under RR, and that is indefensible. But I want the facts before I judge.

I'm wading into some dark waters here. Some people are going to see this diary as an effort to indict (again) Rich Rodriguez. Right here it says that's not what I'm doing--in fact, RR is a great coach, and I wish he had succeeded at U-M. Others will see it as an apology for Al Borges; NO. Al Borges deserves no apologies. After Saturday, I am no longer in favor of giving AB another year. Don't get me wrong--I'm not calling for him to be fired, but I'm not against him being put out to pasture. If he's replaced, however, it better be with someone who has a similar philosophy, because, as this diary shows, transitions can SUCK.

Here are the raw numbers for Michigan:

Yr

# of players

%

Walkons

Scholars

%

1

36

31.6%

9

27

32.1%

2

35

30.7%

11

24

28.6%

3

18

15.8%

4

14

16.7%

4

14

12.3%

4

10

11.9%

5

11

9.6%

2

9

10.7%

On their own, these numbers seem almost self-evident: RR and The Process left us with a roster that is almost completely useless for Hoke's philosophical brand of football. But how do they compare with other schools, and how do they compare with other schools that have recently undergone a coaching staff transition?

Because I have a life and lots of work to do that I can only justify avoiding for so long, I only studied the data of five other schools (because they were easy to find with the Googles): Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas A&M, Ohio State, and Florida State. All of these programs have had coaching changes since 2008, and they are all relatively strong programs that compete for conference championships. Here are their breakdowns:

Yrs

Wisconsin

Nebraska

TAMU

Ohio

FSU

1

23.2%

24.7%

33.8%

30.3%

13.0%

2

13.4%

14.1%

6.3%

23.7%

23.4%

3

18.3%

18.8%

22.5%

23.7%

19.5%

4

23.2%

20.0%

22.5%

13.2%

24.7%

5

22.0%

22.4%

15.0%

9.2%

19.5%

This is just for the scholarship players. While there is some variance across these five programs, there are some stark differences when comparing any of them to the Michigan roster. Only Texas A&M has a higher percentage of first-year players, but their second-year percentage is tiny. Ohio State is the only school to have more than two-fifths of their roster devoted to first and second year players, but at 54%, they are still 6.7 percentage points (12.4%) below Michigan. Here are the averages for the five, including the totals for players in their first two years and players and in their last three years:

Yrs

Sample Five

2/3 totals

1

25.0%

2

16.2%

41.1%

3

20.6%

4

20.7%

5

17.6%

58.9%

Not surprisingly, players in their first and second years compose roughly 2/5 of the roster, with players in their third year or later accounting for about 60%. For Michigan, though, these numbers are drastically--and alarmingly--different. Over 60% of our roster is composed of guys who have been with the program for two years or less. Our roster is upside down. Here are the deltas for our roster versus the average:

Yrs

Delta

% diff

2/3 delta

% diff

1

7.1%

28.4%

2

12.4%

76.5%

19.6%

47.7%

3

-3.9%

-18.9%

4

-8.8%

-42.5%

5

-6.9%

-39.2%

-19.6%

-33.3%

Basically, we have almost 50% more youth and one-third less experience. We will require baby-sitting for another year.

What's even more striking is our dearth of experience on defense: we have just eight scholarship players in their fourth or fifth year in the program. Mattison has turned us into a competent defense despite lacking seasoned veterans, and next year he'll once again have just three fifth-year players.We have, on average, 28.4% more first-year players and 76.5% (!!!) more second-year players. The third year is the least significant difference, where we are about 19% behind the average. In years four and five the difference is vast, but nothing like year two.

Conclusions and Error Sources. We are ridiculously young. Our proportionally gigantic second-year class will be helping to even things out next year, but we'll still be real short on fiftth-year players.

For me, this gives me hope for Hoke. I like Brady; I think he's a genuine, good-hearted man with a teacher's heart. He's a strong recruiter, and he doesn't make the public misstatements that so often tripped-up his predecessor, but he must get this offense turned around or he'll face the same fate. To be honest, I'd rather have a good man as our head coach than a douche who can win games. The trick is finding both, and both you must be if you want to satisfy perhaps the most demanding fanbase in all of college football.

Obviously, youth alone is not enough to tell the story. But it obvious that Hoke inherited a roster that was ill-equipped to handle his demands. I belive that must be a factor when judging his performance.

The obvious error source is the small sample size of the average. That said, Wisconsin has a brand new coach, Ohio and A&M have second-year HCs, and Jimbo started at Florida State in 2010. Only Bo Pelini has more than four years on the job (started in '08). I suspect, if anything, these rosters are more youth-slanted than average, especially when you consider the impact of Ohio State's switch to the spread-no-huddle.

TL;DR - Michigan is extremely inexperienced, and only next year will we have a roster of normal proportions. Greg Mattison has made it work anyway. Hoke has a valid reason for under-performance so far, but starting next year that begins to fade. At this point, even accounting for youth, I can't stand behind Borges anymore.

Was a bit bored and was looking at some stats for the ND and MSU defenses of 2012 on ncaa.com as we always hear how superior they were and now hear how superior they will be in 2013, and I came upon a realization. I think most of us (myself being guilty) underestimate statistically how nice of a defense we had. I think most of us are in awe of the 2011 v 2010 transformation with essentially the same crew, but without a ton of highly rated players (for various) reasons including the loss of the best corner Michigan had some very impressive stats, inclusive of a beatdown by Alabama.

Scoring defense: 19.85 ppg, 20th in the nation. Take out the non BCS teams and its 18th. (ND 2, MSU 9). Fun fact: Rutgers was 4th.

Passing defense 5th in the country, but rushing defense was the one negative at 51st in the country.

Maybe it also was the lack of splash plays - 78th in the country in sacks, 51st in fumbles recovered, so we did not see the "sexy" plays week to week or the scoring plays by the defense. But this team played a very solid brand of fundamental defense (which we all knew) that created perhaps a greater sum of parts than individual pieces - esp. considering some of the talent gaps versus a vintage Michigan team. Also keep in mind this team faced the #1, #2, and #3 teams of 2012.

I know stats are not everything and it needs to pass a sight test but the stats were generally better than I assumed and not very far from those "elite defenses". Maybe people need to ask "how are we going to score on this Michigan defense" more often... This makes me even more excited for what we will see in the next half decade with the talent influx coming in. But let me be the first to say while I was so very impressed with Mattison, I did not realize just how well the defense was doing last year, helping to offset some of the hijinks we had from time to time on offense.

Yes, I have an addiction. Yes, it's March. Some choose to build tiny wooden ships in bottles, I intricately break down defensive lineman technique from spring practice videos frame by frame.

Here's the set-up, Pipkins vs. early enrollee Kyle Bosch and a running back who I don't even bother identifying because Pipkins plays this so well that it doesn't matter what the running back does. Besides, his job is to just pick a side and hit it hard.

Here, Pipkins has a pretty good stance, wide base, on the balls of his feet, athletic posture and good knee bend. Low for a big man - that small human he shed this offseason seems to have helped with that some.

Right after the snap, Pipkins has fired of his left foot and is already bringing his hands, preparing to make contact with Bosch. At first glance he appears to come out a little high, but as we'll see, his hands, strength and quick feet help him overcome that. The ideal first step (my understanding) is to be quick, low to the ground, forceful and almost a jab - generate force but reset to be able to drive off again.

As he makes contact with Bosch, Pipkins has already driven off his right foot as well, generating more power and force into Bosch. His hands have shot inside very quickly and, as we'll see, will allow him to control Bosch.

Here, Pipkins has reset both feet and will again drive through them to push Bosch back. They're pretty much at the line of scrimmage - Bosch has not fired off the ball nor has he moved his feet, except laterally. I think he should be drive blocking here, but I could be mistaken. Maybe his job is just to seal off Pipkins. Regardless, the young buck won't win this battle. Bosch has his hands in pretty poor position, as Pipkins has him basically by the collar and Bosch would need to hold to really have his left hand be any use to him at this point.

This time as Pipkins generates more power into Bosch with his legs, he clearly has leverage. Just compare the angles of their bodies to the ground - Pipkins is firing out and up, Bosch is sitting back down onto his heels. His feet are again driving for power, and as we'll see in a second, he's about to explode upward with his feet and hips, while also extending his arms and pressing Bosch away from him.

He's pushing off the ground hard enough that both feet are (minorly) airborn. His hands are extended, they're even with his eyes. Ideally they will end up above his eyes when he extends, but this a strong punch he delivers. Keep in mind this has all happened in a few split seconds as we are just now seeing the ballcarrier enter the frame.

Here, Pipkins has his left arm free with his right fully controlling Bosch, further pushing him back on his heels. The running back has already decided to go left, so that's where Pipkins will meet him with great haste.

Contact is made with the ballcarrier at about the line of scrimmage, as Bosch is finally leaving his heels. He's also managed to grab a little cloth with his lefth and, proving that Pipkins hands were far better on this occasion. I'll give him credit for trying to finish the block and driving through Pipkins, but it's already over.

Tackle made - 1 yard gain.

Here's the video of the whole thing, starts at about 2:28.

If you start a second before you can see how much taller Devin is than Gallon which is both awesome and depressing at the same time. Let me know if you see any mistakes or glaring oversights or crap I just made up.